Hitler's Mein Kampf Will Be Reprinted in Germany for the First Time Since World War II

Reprints of Adolf Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf will be hitting bookstores across Germany once more — the first time since the Nazi leader’s death.

A ban on reprinting the Nazi manifesto in the country has been in place since the end of World War II. The state of Bavaria has held the German copyright ever since but it expires in December, reports the Washington Post.

The new edition, which is being produced and published by the taxpayer-funded Institute of Contemporary History, will be a heavily annotated 2,000-page volume that features mostly criticism and analysis.

The institute says Mein Kampf (My Struggle) is an important historical and educational tool.

But opponents, including many Holocaust survivors, are outraged with the reissue, with many seeing it as giving a fresh voice to a ruthless and deranged dictator who was responsible for the deaths of more than 11 million people.

“This book is most evil; it is the worst anti-Semitic pamphlet and a guidebook for the Holocaust,” said Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Jewish community in Munich.

Though republication of Mein Kampf has been banned in Germany, the book is widely available online and in many other countries including the U.S. and Canada.